If I had seen this as a child, I would have messed myself because of the excitement

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2013)

There were certain things I enjoyed as a child. One was giant monster movies such as Godzilla and another were giant robots. So this movie would have been right up my alley. It still is something I wanted to see as it is also very anime like in the way it plays out. It has an anime inspired look and also add the Guillermo Del Toro factor and you end up with one very cool action movie featuring giant mechanized robots fighting huge monsters that were even given the name they have in Japan, Kaiju. Granted, it was not perfect as the look of the film was spectacular and the action grand, the story just was a bit to by the numbers and the acting at time serviceable and at other times a bit like they were not being directed to do nothing more than to open and close their mouths. Still, Del Toro is more of a visual director in my view as I enjoy the first two Blade films equally, liking the first one's story better, but liking the overall style and look of the second better (Del Toro's).
The story has the earth under assault. Some sort of rift has appeared in the Pacific Ocean and huge beasts are coming through causing havoc. At first, it is believed to be an isolated incident, but it turns out that these things keep coming. The earth reacts by building huge robots called Jaegers to combat this monsters. The Jaegers turn the tide momentarily, but the monsters that come through keep getting bigger and adapt their fighting style. A man who used to partner with his brother, piloting a Jaeger called the Gypsy Danger is working on a wall that is being erected to stop the Kaiju as the Jaegers and their pilots are being killed at an ever increasing rate. This man lost his brother and now is asked to team up and pilot the Gypsy Danger for one more mission to close the rift and stop the Kaiju from entering our world.
Like I said, the film has great visuals and that is the star of the piece. So much so that I still give the film a nine despite the many flaws with the story. The robots look good and the monster pretty cool too as one of the monsters near the end even sprouts wings and resembles the Gamera nemesis Gyaos. However, I wish they did a bit more to make the monsters look a bit more distinct as the robots look all different, but the monsters tended to resemble one another. Still, there are some great fights and as I said with a Del Toro film it is usually the visuals that are the highlight and they do not disappoint here.
So a fun movie to watch, at one point the pilot of the Gypsy Danger activates a rocket on the arm to make the robot punch harder and I was thinking "Rocket Punch!" from an anime I had seen as a kid. If they could have added a bit more humor to the film it would have been a near perfect film for me. The ending was a bit to predictable too. Overall, the experience was satisfying and I am a bit sad to see this film not doing better at the box office here as I would love to see a sequel mainly due to curiosity in how it would play out. So a very nice film, to bad it did not come out when I was younger.